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For those of you with the money, there are real-life adventure games run by various societies. The setting is medieval times, and brave knights rescue princesses from wicked wizards who have locked them in a tower.

But for those of us who cannot afford to go on these expensive romps, the next best - or perhaps even the best - thing is to put the idea on cassette and call it an adventure game. Such a game is Knights Quest and I tried it out on the 48K Spectrum.

You are a knight from the castle of Camelot (Where else?) who must search for Merlin's lost treasure and return it - fighting on your way all the dragons, giants, elves and so forth who crop up in your path. Oh, and of course you get to rescue a captive princess.

The Knights Quest cassette is well labelled, with a copy of the adventure recorded on both sides of the tape. Instructions are on the tape, but not the cassette sleeve. I found LOADing no problem, but the instructions, which precede the adventure, cannot be bypassed. You just have to sit through them every time. And sadly, they are vague and brief. This led to some confusion as I carried on playing.

The first sight you see is the road to Camelot. The screen is split between graphics and text from time to time, though generally what you get is a description of where you are together with the question "What shall I do now?"

After a spot of bother trying to figure out how to use the program's commands, since the instructions are vague and brief, I tried to rescue a helpless dwarf being beaten up by savage elves. But even though I was fully armed, sword and all, I was told. "You were defenceless and were captured by the elves."

Well! This sort of thing happened several times, so I finally managed to get into Camelot to pick up some food, a sword and shield. Then I headed off to make my fortune and rescue my princess.

But that was about as far as I was able to get. Bugs, and plenty of them, prevented me from advancing much further into the game.

It is a pity that the game's bugs prevented me from getting deep into it, since a look at the program listing showed that there is plenty to this adventure. It would be fun - if only it were working properly.